Caribbean Paradise in Mexico

Carnaval 2018

It has come and gone like a flash. The pueblito has returned to its quiet and sleepy state from the figurative and literal hangover from this past weekend’s Carnaval activities. The only sounds are the blowing of the seasonal breeze through the trees and songs of the tropical Great Kiskadee and Yucatan Jay birds pirched in them. It was a great weekend of parades, dancing and entertainment in that familiar imperfect Mahahual style.

The events kicked off Friday with a parade leaving from our neighborhood, casitas, scheduled for 6:30pm, which started promptly at 7:30pm in typical caribbean fashion, and traveling down the malecon with music and candy for the kids, ending up in “the dome”. As residents of casitas we thought it would be nice to grab our bikes and get there early to make sure we had a good spot for the show. That turned out to be silly of us because the parade only left from casitas, it wasn’t for casitas, as evidenced by the main float cruising by at mach 30 without a single wave or candy thrown our way.

The events calendar said the parade started in casitas so ourselves and a few flabbergasted others were left eating dust and sucking exhaust fumes as the floats whizzed by. If you are coming next year, be aware of that fact. Things don’t always make sense so plan for other eventualities!

After regrouping we headed down to the dome to check out the other events before the music started. There was a good sized crowd in good participatory spirits compared to last year at the light house when only a few hundred showed up and had all of the energy of a crowd at an international insomnia convention. The kings and queens were announced, the local dance troupe put on a show, the vendors fired up the tacos and marquesitas and Carnaval was officially under way for 2018!

The kids took over the stage with their care-free and cutting edge dance moves and once the Dos Equis took hold, everybody else was moving too. Lights flashed, cans emptied and tails shook until the music stopped around 3am.

Saturday’s activities were published only on the local facebook page in plenty of time for people to plan their day…late Saturday morning. So if you were like me and don’t live on facebook, you had no idea there was another parade and round of activities before the music started again, despite my best efforts to try and find out what the schedule of events for the weekend was…flamboozled twice by the parade!

We made it down to the dome Saturday expecting a smaller crowd with a little less enthusiasm but what we found was a sea of little brown locals, dancing and smiling, peppered with hairy white tourists and expats who were just as happy to be there. The energy was thick and the night was quality once again. The kids ruled the stage and the lights flashed into the wee hours.

Overall Carnaval in Mahahual in 2018 was a success. We might be a small community but we really felt big this past weekend. If the improvements from 2017 to 2018 are any indication of the trend for the future, I would say don’t risk missing Carnaval 2019! Just make sure you don’t wait for the parade in casitas!